


Justice League Limited

by Endangered_Slug



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU of the silliest kind, But holy hell did I enjoy writing this, F/M, Not and RCIJ Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 09:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7612084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endangered_Slug/pseuds/Endangered_Slug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle and her friends cosplay at the park where they accidentally crash a kid's birthday party.  It's all fun and games until it's... fun and games and possibly meeting the love of your life. If only he'd look up.</p>
<p>The one with the juice box!</p>
<p>From a @tinuviel-undomiel prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Justice League Limited

**Author's Note:**

> So when I got the prompt we were watching Justice League Unlimited. (Oh, look where I got the title from!) Also, @rootbeergoddess sent a prompt for a play date with Tiana. I originally wasn’t going to put in Huntress, but a little sleuthing showed that she’s voiced by Amy Acker so yeah, I had to put her in. (Raphael Sbarge also voiced a character but I was sticking to an all woman ensemble). Also, I know it’s the utmost irony, but I really don’t know how to do kid fics?

It was just after one o’clock on a Saturday afternoon in June and a line of women, all dressed in skimpy superhero costumes (and one super villain), came off the path from the park entrance and headed towards the public restroom. A man followed them, absently fiddling with the expensive camera strapped around his neck, barely paying attention as they filed into the women’s room one by one.

The bathrooms were located in a low cinder-block building painted a soft green in order to blend in with the park surroundings and set in a wide gravel area with a water fountain.

Only one woman stayed back. Dressed in a custom made Wonder Woman outfit complete with tiara, cuffs, lasso, and boots, Belle French broke off from the rest to collapse on one of the benches ringing the area.

“Here, Belle, you need to re-lip,” the photographer said, handing her the bright blue makeup bag she’d brought with her and entrusted to his care.

Belle took it with a murmured, “Thanks, Jefferson”, rifling through it until she found the fire engine red lipstick she used for this cosplay. Taking out a small mirror, she carefully applied the lipstick, checking her teeth for smudges with a wide-mouthed grimace.

Jefferson’s camera whirred and clicked inches from her face.

“Really?” she asked, making a face at him.

“Outtakes. They’re very popular,” he said, jerking his camera out of her reach of her grasping hands. “Ah ah! No touchy!”

“Fine then. No clicky,” she retorted before checking to see if anything else needed to be touched up. “I do _not_ have Merida’s steady hand for this,” she said, lifting the mirror up to check her hair. The tiara was a bit tight on her and she knew there would be a ghastly red line on her forehead from it, but she dared not take it off until the photoshoot was over. She would never get it on again without messing something up. It had taken Merida three tries to place it perfectly on her forehead and get it to stay still as it was.

Astrid came out of the restroom just then, looking traumatized. “You better go now, Belle. Public toilets and a tight-laced corset is not a good combination trust me on that,” she said, swinging her cape back around her shoulders and snapping it into place. Her black and purple Huntress costume was skin tight, technically covering her from neck to toe, but left nothing to the imagination.

Belle looked up at her, blinking a bit as the sunlight hit her right in the eyes before she shifted. “Um, no actually I’m good,” she said before packing up her makeup case and tossing it to Jefferson, who let it drop onto the gravel.

“Your reflexes suck, Jimmy Olsen,” she teased, pulling up at her knee-high boots as she stood up from the bench. They were standard red with the white stripe, but she opted for the more practical soles rather than the high heels for this photoshoot. Heels and grass were not a good combination she learned after a twisted ankle three years earlier when she did a Beauty and the Beast cosplay. She would, however, use her heels during ComicCon — and still be shorter than half the adults there. Some of the kids, too.

“Yeah, there’s no way I’m dropping my camera to catch _anything_. Not even puppies,” he mumbled, clicking through the camera roll, deleting a few pictures along the way. “And you need to stop smiling so much in these. Wonder Woman is serious. Pretend you’re looking at someone with overdue books or something, I dunno. I need more… fierce determination from you.”

“She smiles,” Belle said, craning her head over his shoulder to look at the stills.

“She smiles, but not when she’s fighting.”

“Shows what you know,” Belle muttered under her breath.

Jefferson’s shoulders slumped. “You know what I mean. We’re going for fierce warrior women and, here, look at his,” he said, arrowing through the frames quickly. “Look, this is a-a-a glamour shot. You’re gorgeous — Jesus you’re, like, unfuckingreal, and I’m putting this up on my blog once I crop it — but, see, everyone else is all “Rawr!” And you’re all, “Purrrrrrrrrrrrr.” That make sense?” he asked, turning his head towards her.

“Um… Yeah, I guess,” she said. It did make sense, but she had no idea how to make her face change into something it wasn’t. She smiled a lot. It was something she did.

He beamed at her, a thousand watt smile that nearly hurt her eyes. “Great! Just… unleash your inner… I dunno, what would you unleash if you could?”

She rolled her eyes and turned away, swinging her arms back and forth to loosen them up. She liked Jefferson, loved him even — the man was practically a brother to her, but he was beginning to grate on her nerves with all his divaishness. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

Merida, a curly-haired redhead dressed as Batgirl, groaned loudly as she came out of the toilets. “ _That_ was a health hazard,” she complained loudly, waving a hand in front of her face.

“You guys want to call it a day?” Jefferson asked, realizing that they were losing their steam.

Mulan, sitting on the bench to his left, lifted her mask in irritation, setting it on top of her head to glare at him better. “Are you _nuts_? I lifted weights for four months straight. Gave up sugar completely _and_ caffeine and went on an all protein diet three weeks ago so I could fit into this suit. I am going to finish the damn photoshoot if it’s the last thing I do,” she hissed.

“Oh wow, Mulan,” Belle said, giving her a pitying look. “No wonder you’ve been so grumpy lately.”

“Shut up,” she snapped. “We don’t all have your metabolism.”

They waited for the last of them to finish up. Dressed as Poison Ivy, Ariel had the least amount of costume to wear, but it was complicated to pull on and off and required more care than was feasible in the middle of a park on a hot day. At last, she came out, patting the ivy vines covering her breasts in place. “Sorry!” she said with a rueful look. “I had to use more boob tape. I was beginning to sweat it off.”

Mulan snickered as she set her mask back on, fluffing out her hair a bit before she took out her sword, a vicious looking katana and her character’s namesake, swinging it back and forth in wide arcs. She did some warmup exercises, a few lunges and twirls over her head, distracting Jefferson who began snapping pictures of her in rapid succession as he gave direction.

“Gorgeous, Mulan. Show me power! Show me fierce! Hold your sword up and then bring it down like you’re gonna cut me in half! Okay, wait, no! No! No, I— Okay, no that’s good… Jump! Jump! Good!”

Belle sidled up to Ariel, muttering, “These would be really awesome if they didn’t have the toilets in the background.”

“I heard that,” Jefferson called out, not taking his eyes off Mulan or stopping his finger from pressing on the camera button. “Photoshop, darling! Fixes everything.”

At last he stopped taking pictures and let his camera dangle from the strap around his neck. “Okay, I saw a boulder up the lane that would be great for an action shot. Let’s go up and check it out.”

He took his large camera bag and shoulder it with a dramatic grunt while Belle took the handle of the suitcase they were using for their supplies and followed behind as he led them up the path like a Kodacolored, superhero preschool.

There were whistles of course and a few people asking for pictures with them, all part of a cosplayer’s life when they were in costume, and the women gamely posed (with Belle doing her best to look fierce, which, it turned out, was a lot easier to do when she had to rip a man’s hand from her ass). They left the path about three kilometers up the lane and strolled to the boulder Jefferson mentioned, which wasn’t so much a boulder as it was a pile of rocks lining the top of a small berm that protected the grass field that was sometimes used for summer concerts.

They were familiar with the area and knew the drop off would be fairly short and clean and no one would be hurt if they fell. The group conferred and decided that they would run towards the edge of the rock, launch themselves in the air while Jefferson lay back on the grass to get an upwards shot. They they would do it over and over at different angles until either they lost the light of one of them broke an ankle.

“I’ll be directly under it so, you know, jump as far as you can and try not to land on my camera,” Jefferson said, as he jogged ahead, the path winding down and around into the field out of sight. “I’ll tell you when to go,” he called over his shoulder.

The girls lined up, kicking their knees or swinging their arms to limber up. Mulan rolled her head along her neck and Ariel tried to discreetly pick out an ivy wedgie that seemed permanently lodged in her rear.

Belle took some cleansing breaths, trying to focus on her character and the fierceness that Jefferson had asked for. She felt utterly ridiculous.

“Belle? Are you okay?” Ariel asked from her right, looking at her in concern. “You’re turning blue underneath your foundation and that’s kind of scary.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, just trying to channel my inner warrior. Jeff says I smile too much.”

Mulan leaned around Astrid to look at her. “Try yelling as you jump,” she said, her red lips smirking.

Belle lifted an eyebrow. “Yelling?” she asked, intrigued. The idea appealed to her. Yelling could be fierce.

“Yeah. A war cry, from down here,” she said, placing a gloved hand over her crotch. “Where it counts.”

“You want me to yell from m-my vagina?” Belle sputtered. “What?”

“Yes,” Mulan said, adamantly. “Bring that war cry all the way up from your vagina. A warrior’s spirit lives in you, you just have to unleash her.”

“From my actual vagina?”

“It’s deeper than your diaphragm,” Mulan laughed, clearly enjoying Belle’s confusion. “And better than your gut. It’s also very effective.”

Belle was just about to ask her how, precisely, she knew that, but just then Jefferson called the all clear and Astrid began the countdown.

“One!”

Belle stood up straight with her shoulders back. Fierce. She had to be fierce.

“Two!”

She took a deep breath, reserving it as far down as she could get it, which was somewhere down by her lower intestine. Close enough!

“Three!”

They took off in a line, jumping in unison, with Belle emitting a battle cry that might have shaken down Themyscira itself had she been there. Her right knee up high, left leg back, and a fist punched forward, her primal scream could be heard booming over the lawn to the far side of the berm where it bounced back in a rolling echo that faded away into the afternoon.

Belle landed on her feet, bending her knees to absorb the blow, then bounded up again, springing on her toes and twirling with her fists crossed in front of her chest in the classic Wonder Woman pose, knowing that Jefferson had probably rolled over to catch their landing, but instead of the clicking of the camera shutter and Jefferson telling them how sexy they were and to throw back their hair, there was utter silence followed by a defending sound wave of kids cheering.

She turned and saw about fifteen kids, roughly six to ten years old, cheering and jumping up and down with their tiny fists in the air at the sudden invasion of what looked to be a boy’s birthday party.  They were all standing underneath a rented canopy that had red, white, and blue flags fluttering from the edge. The party table was positively buckling underneath a mound of presents and the food table fared no better, with a large, tacky cake placed in pride of place. The kids seemed overly ecstatic at their arrival, but the adults looked positively stunned at six scantily clad women suddenly appearing out of nowhere. Ariel, in her Poison Ivy costume, was of particular interest to more than one person at the venue, both man, woman, and child.

Breathing heavily and feeling her face flush with embarrassment, Belle’s eyes immediately zeroed in on one man, a bit older than the rest, with longer hair than anyone would have expected and wearing a crisp linen suit even out there at the park, stared open-mouthed at her, a bendy straw dangling from his lips from where it was stuck, the juice box he had been sipping from now a crumpled mess in his fist and the liquid running down his hand in rivulets. She hoped it wouldn’t stain his nice suit. She would be sure to give him Jefferson’s number if he needed payment for a dry cleaner.

The rest of the parents at the party began to talk excitedly amongst themselves, their children having recovered from the surprise and began running towards them en masse. It was then that she noticed the capes that fluttered behind them as they surged. A superhero party. Of course.

“I’m going to kill him,” Belle hissed at Astrid though her eyes never left the strange man’s face. The straw finally dropped and the man’s mouth closed with an obvious snap as he blinked himself out of his stupor, shaking his head a bit.

She couldn’t believe they had just crashed some kid’s party. Whirling back around, she marched straight for her friend. Her face was fierce now. She knew it because she was going to strangle him with his camera strap.

“Oh god, Belle!” he said, still on his back, tears rolling down his face from hysterical laughter. “You-you screamed so loud.” His voice was a high-pitched squeal, coming out through breathless wheezes.

“I was going for fierce!” she uttered through clenched teeth, ready to tear his stupid hair out of his stupid head.

He sat up slowly, his knees spreading out in a butterfly seat, shoulders still shaking as he laughed silently. “You _were_ fierce, darling.”

“There are people here!”

“It’s a public park,” he reasoned, not even trying to hide the smirk.

“You did that on purpose,” she accused, crouching down to whisper in his ear, her voice lowered into a threatening tone while the smile he complained about never wavering from her face. “I’m going to get you. We just ruined some kid’s birthday party.”

“Ehehehehehehehehehe! No, you didn’t you fucking made the party. Look how stupidly happy the little stinkers are,” he said, finally pushing himself up on his elbows to look over his shoulder. “Oh god, they’re all coming here. Brace yourself, they tend to jump.”

“What did you expect to happen, you idiot?” she said, standing up.

Belle grabbed his wrist, helping him up the rest of the way, glancing over at the tent out of the corner of her eye. The man was still staring. Well, she was staring back so it was even.

Jefferson ran a hand through his hair, tossling out bits of stray grass. There were clippings all over the back of him, too, but Belle pointedly did not mention it. “Oh man, we need to do another jump, I completely lost it when you went over yodeling like Tarzan.”

“I won’t and I didn’t yodel. I screamed from my vagina,” she informed him with a curt nod, her eyes never straying from the other man.

His face screwed up in confusion. “What?”

A quick glance at her friend before she looked back at the stranger. “Ask Mulan. She’ll tell you all about it.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” he said, adjusting the camera strap some more.

The entire group of screaming kids had reached them, jumping and running around, yelling wildly. Two of them had a mock battle that looked dangerously close to becoming a real fight while one little boy with curly red hair wrinkled his nose at them.

“Yuck! They’re all _girls_.” He stood back, his arms crossed as he watched the group completely ignore him. “They aren’t _real_ superheroes,” he complained loudly.

“They’re all _girls_!” someone squealed. A little girl with blonde pigtails and a red cape zoomed past her dragging another little girl with her by the hand. “Come on, Tiana! They’re girls! They’re girls!”

“Stop pulling, Emma,” Tiana complained, but she ran ahead of her friend just the same, each one of them tugging at each.

The two of them — the only girls invited to the party by the look of it — landed in front of Astrid who looked at Belle wildly as if silently calling for help as they jumped up and down in front of her, screaming.

“Hey, miss?” someone said behind her and Belle turned again to find an earnest little boy about ten years old with a wide grin on his face. His hair was a mop of curls set above a freckled face. He looked up at her as if she had come especially gift wrapped for him.

“Yes?”

“You’re gonna wanna talk to my dad,” he said pointing to the man in the linen suit, who was surrounded by irate parents.

“Yeah” she said, blankly. “I suppose one of us should,” realizing that the parents were owed an apology before they fled the park. And, typical, that task would fall to her. She glanced back at her friends, still surrounded by a gaggle of tiny terrors. She might have the better end of the deal.

“Hey, miss?” the boy said again, touching her on the arm for a moment before he let his hand drop down quickly.

“Uh?”

He beamed at her, his eyes crinkling up until she could barely see the color of his irises. “That was really cool what you did.”

“You think so?” she asked, smiling at him. She squared her shoulders (Wonder Woman was brave and could face anyone without fear) and walked over to the gentleman in the linen suit, the boy’s father. “Well, I think you’re cool,” she told him, internally wincing at how lame that sounded. She felt it was safer to brave the adult’s ire than try to converse with anyone under the age of seventeen.

The shade of the tent beckoned to her and once underneath it, she instinctively bent down to pick up the straw that fell from the man’s lips and tucked it underneath her belt intending to toss it into the first rubbish bin she saw on the way out.

A woman in designer jeans and a shirt that looked like it cost almost as much as one of her library paychecks was hissing at him. “I swear to god, Gold if you hired strippers—”

Belle inhaled sharply, insulted and ready to defend herself and her friends, but the boy’s father interrupted the woman in a rich accent that surprised her.

“I didn’t hire anyone,” he said, irritably. “They’re obviously doing… something. Involving costumes. And photography equipment. Maybe they’re actors. And it was an accident,” he finished testily, shaking the juice from his hand.

The woman stepped back out of range of any droplets that might land on her, arms crossed over her chest and not looking one jot mollified. “It’s a gross display and you need to put a stop to it before our children are horribly influenced by their disgusting behavior.”

Belle glanced over her shoulder expecting to see an orgy or something that would provoke such an outburst, but her friends were just playing with the kids. Ariel was sitting on the ground while Tiana tucked flowers in her hair, chattering happily about something that kept Ariel talking, a confused and helpless look on her face. The other little girl, Emma, was in the fray of a battle that was just beginning.

The boys were all wrapped up with Mulan — even the snotty red head. Or, rather, they were oohing and ahhing over her sword, which she refused to take out of its scabbard.

“No, it’s sharp. I don’t want to hurt you.”

There was a whining chorus of, “Pleeeaassseeee!”

“Don’t make me hurt you,” she told them sternly, but that just made them run around trying to get her to chase them.

“They’re fine. Let them play. That’s the whole point of being a kid,” the man in the suit said, turning away from the irate woman, coming face to face with Belle.

His eyes were a beautiful soft brown, with wrinkles at the edges and they widened with surprise when he saw her. She smiled, shyly, fully aware that she was a grown person wearing a skimpy costume and it was very much not October 31st.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he echoed after a second’s pause. “Um. You’re…”

“Just a photoshoot. We do it every year before ComicCon. We didn’t mean to interrupt. Well, Jefferson might have thought it would be funny, but the rest of us didn’t know we’d be jumping into your party.”

The corner of his mouth quirked. “Well. Just be glad we didn’t put the tent by the outcrop like we’d originally planned.”

She laughed a bit, awkwardly. “Yeah, that would have been bad if we jumping into the cake.”

“Better than out of it,” he quipped, his cheeks crinkling as he gave her a crooked smile that dropped when he realized what he said. He flushed and looked away from her, clearing his throat uncomfortably. But he couldn’t seem to not look at her for very long. His eyes were drawn back towards her and, with another smirk, asked, “Aren’t you a little short to be an Amazon?”

She laughed through her nose, fully aware of her height, or the lack of it. “Aren’t you a little formally dressed for a children’s party?” she retorted looking pointedly at his clothes.

“What? This old thing?” he said, a smile playing on his lips.

Belle smiled back, a sneaking suspicion that, underneath that expensive suit, he wore a Superman shirt just for his son. It was probably a Christmas present. Or a birthday gift. But she would have bet good money that he donned it before they set out for the park that afternoon.

“We’ll just, uh, go,” she said awkwardly, turning to head out. “I’m very sorry we crashed your son’s party.”

“Wait,” the man said, his eyes wide and frantic. He reached for her, but his hand stopped just short of physical contact. “Look, this is strange, but Bae would love for you to stay.”

She blinked at him. Bae? Really? She glanced over at the other grown ups in his party wondering which one was BAE. He looked a little old to be using slang, but maybe his girlfriend was younger. She eyed the woman who was dressing him down earlier. Probably not her, she thought. Maybe the other woman with the short pixie cut, or the taller one who must have been Tiana’s mom.

“They won't bother you,” he said, erroneously assuming she was worried about another outburst. “But Bae, my son, he loves superheroes.”

Ah! Well, that explained it a bit better. A little bit.

She tilted her head at him, her lips quirking up into a smirk. “Bae?”

“Baeden,” he clarified. “The one right there,” he said, pointing towards the kid who spoke to her before. “The short one with the mop of curls.”

She allowed himself to look at his son for a moment before turning her attention back to the boy’s father. He was staring right back at her. Caught, he swallowed nervously, giving her a tentative smile that triggered a tiny bit of warmth curling in her chest. He was very handsome, she realized. Handsome in a distinguished, older man, sexy beast sort of way.

“Um, I'll go see if it's alright with my friends,” she said, doubtfully.

“Good! Good. I mean that would be good. Obviously. Bae thinks the world of-of,” he rolled his hand in a vague gesture at them. “Superheroes. I mean…” he trailed off, forgetting what he was going to say as he looked at her. “Good.”

Belle smiled at him, genuinely. He was staring at her again. But only at her eyes, not straying to other places that would require real action karate chops to anatomically correct places.

“I'll go ask,” she said again. Then, with a cheeky smirk and a lift of her eyebrow, “Have another juice box.” She turned around on her heel and marched back to her friends, allowing herself to be assimilated into the Borg Collective for the time being.

She took a quick survey of her friends, then she turned back to the man, whose name she realized she never got, holding up her hands and mouthed, “Ten minutes,” at him.

He nodded his thanks to her, his arms crossed over his chest and his hands tucked into his sides in a protective gesture that puzzled her.

The kids were mostly fun. Belle at least had some experience with them through her job. Though she wasn’t the children’s librarian, she helped when they were short handed sometimes. They were mostly loud. And a bit sticky. But cute. Bae, as his father had promised, was over the moon — even if they were girls — and they found themselves lined up in an epic battle, grown ups vs. kids. Ariel, though, barely moved when the start was called.

“I jiggle _everywhere_ and my ass is showing,” she hissed when asked about it. “I think I should just, you know, sit and look plant-like”

Jefferson snapped dozens of pictures (no calls for fierce now) and had already handed out his business cards to every person under the tent, promising they could have copies of the pictures if they wanted. He also had to swear on his mother’s life not to use any picture with any child for any reason without express, written permission by their parent. It was the irate, designer jeans woman that forced that out of him, despite the fact that Jefferson would never do such a thing. He was a parent himself and would gut anyone who used his daughter in such a way.

“I wish Grace was here,” he confided to Belle during one running pass.

She nodded at him, smiling all the while. She was unable to keep the grin off her face as she played with the kids. They came up with the silliest games mostly revolving around the concept of I-hit-you-with-this-stick-and-you-fall-down, but not wanting to get whacked with anything and fearing Mulan actually whipping out her sword, they managed to find middle ground. Superhero Tag was now a Thing and, as she was in turns It and a runner, she couldn’t help but glance over to the man in the suit every so often, a joyful, never ending smile on her face, which seemed reciprocated as he watched his son have the best birthday of his life.

Ten minutes became twenty, twenty became forty and, before Belle realized, they were all being called over for cake. Bae’s dad was lighting the candles — obnoxious ones that sputtered a bit before they burst into sparklers which the kids loved. Belle was quickly learning that kids demonstrate their affections by screaming. Loudly. They surrounded the birthday boy and sang, loud and very bad, who didn’t seem to care judging by the smile that lit up his face. He squeezed his eyes shut then blew the candles out to a round of cheering.

After so much running around, it only seemed natural to accept the piece of cake that was offered to her, and it only seemed natural to eat it standing next to Bae’s dad, who sometimes bumped elbows with her and had a smidge of blue frosting on the corner of his mouth. She was sweaty and she knew her lipstick was probably eaten off due to the cake, but she didn’t care. She was having fun. Actual fun with her friends at Bae’s party. She wouldn’t strangle Jefferson when they left. She might even thank him.

She’d still call him a dope, though.

The cake now gone and the presents opened and serving their purpose to distract the children from the grown up task of cleaning up, Belle pretended to gather paper plates to help, while Bae’s dad told her to stop that nonsense and that he’d take care of it.

Taking care of it meant a big, bald man and a shorter, bald man, but with a beard, doing all the work. Together they struck down the tent and packed everything up within minutes. It was very efficient and she wondered if they were hired for the party or if the man she was quickly crushing on had minions.

She tilted her head at him, looking him from the corner of her eye before she turned to face him fully.

“I just want to know one thing. Well, two,” she corrected, biting her lip.

“And what’s that?” he asked, giving her his undivided attention.

“Well,” she began, then paused, shyly. “The first one is, what’s your name?”

He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t realized that he didn’t offer it before. “It’s Robert. Robert Gold.”

She nodded a bit at first then stuck out her hand. “Belle French.”

He took it, his fingers surprisingly rough and calloused against her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss French.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Belle is fine,” she told him.

“Belle, then. And, ah, what’s the second thing?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.

She stood up on her tiptoes, close to his ear. His long hair was soft and tickled her nose. “Are you wearing a superman shirt underneath all that?” she asked before popping back down to her normal height.

A smirk appeared on his face. Dangerous and cunning and sexy as hell. He unfastened the clip and threw the tail of his tie over his shoulder, holding her eyes with his as he slowly unbuttoned five opalescent buttons, snapping each one from its buttonhole with a professional flourish. Then, when she was ready to just rip the damn thing off of him, he grabbed the fabric with his fists and spread the shirt out wide.

On his chest was the red and yellow, stylized S she was looking for. She licked her lips before she knew what she was about, then played it off as if she wasn’t affected in the slightest, shaking her hair over her shoulder and meeting his eyes steadily. Even if they were smouldering at her now. Even if she wanted to melt into her boots.

“I thought so,” she told him, flippantly. “Knew you were the type.”

“What type is that, Belle?” he said, buttoning up again.

“The type that would do anything for his boy,” she told him simply, taking the tie clip from him when he was done with his shirt and putting it into place. “There,” she said, patting his chest. “Perfect.

He opened his mouth to say something, but what it was, she didn’t find out.

“Belle, come on! We’re leaving!” Astrid called from the path.

“Stop flirting and get his number. Phones were invented for a reason,” Mulan added to the disgust of everyone under the age of ten.

A chorus of “Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwws” was followed by a dogpile on top of Bae who defended his dad vigorously.

Belle, blushing furiously, turned to Mr. Gold, waiting expectantly. He seemed on the perpetual verge of a decision only to pull himself back at the last minute, his eyes pleading with her to say something.

Neither one mentioned a phone number though it was on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to call him. Wanted to get to know him better, but she didn’t want to be the first to admit it. It seemed he couldn’t bring himself to either because the silence stretched on unbearably.

One of them had to be brave. _You do it. You do it. You do it_ , Belle chanted in her head, willing him with her mind to ask for her phone number. She cursed her cowardice. She cursed his.

“Um, I guess I should go then,” she said sadly, aware that their moment had passed and she would likely never see this lovely man with his sweet son again. He probably didn’t want a freak like her hanging around him anyway. Bad influence. Looked like a stripper to boot.

“I— Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair, wrecking the look in the sexiest way possible.

She patted his shoulder, a weak substitution for a hug or a kiss, and dear god the linen felt great under her fingertips. She would have loved to rub her face on it. She smiled, a weak, thin thing that hurt. Turning around to leave, it was just then that something pinged in her subconscious, a heretofore useless fact that was now very, very useful. She whirled back, suddenly filled with something akin to euphoria.

“Wait. Mr. Gold! You have that little antiques shop off Main Street?” she asked, now aware of where she’d heard the name before.

“That’s right.”

“Well. That’s good information to have isn’t it?”

“You think so?” he said, the smirk back, giving her a glimpse of that gold tooth of his.

“I do,” she told him, solemnly, but her eyes sparkled at him. “I’ll see you around, Mr. Gold.”

She turned around and made it three feet before he called out, “Robert!”

She paused in her tracks and turned her head towards him. “See you around, Robert,” she said over her shoulder. Then she followed her friends out of the grassy area and made the long trek back to their cars.

Ariel was driving her back to her apartment and, as she buckled herself in, Belle took the straw out from underneath her belt (which was said to be imbued with the powers of Themyscira thus giving Diana her super strength in the real world) and twirled it between her fingers.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would do the brave thing.


End file.
